Back when concert tickets and albums were almost the same price, I’d buy the new record before I went to the show. That’s what would happen. The band would go on the road and play most of the new album and a few old hits. If you didn’t know the new material, you were lost in a cacophony of sound. Shit, how great is hearing unfamiliar music live? Pretty shitty for most folk.

Therefore, when people go to the show today, they only want to hear the hits. They don’t want to hear anything new. And when you do fire up your new compositions, they immediately go to the bathroom, got get a drink. New material is like the obligatory drum solo of yore, signal for a break.

Therefore, every act that is not a flash in the pan is an oldies act. The customer, paying an overinflated price for a ducat, feels he DESERVES to hear the hits. That’s why you charged him so much, right? That’s why your new music must come with the ticket, it must be included, just like the TicketMaster fees, only this time the charge will be built in, it will be transparent to the end user.

I know, I know, you can’t do this. You need a big SOUNDSCAN NUMBER!

No you don’t. Maybe your dying label does, but you don’t. That’s an old scorecard, for a dying game. If anything, you should be interested in your BigChampagne numbers, how many people are trading your tracks. That’s the true indicator of popularity.

If all the money is in touring, why are you trying to sell your music? Doesn’t it make more sense to give it away, in the hope that people will have a better concert experience?

You want to grow. But your audience won’t let you. They don’t want to hear anything new. But if the $100 ticket came with the new material, the audience would be motivated to play the new stuff, in ANTICIPATION of the show. After a while, this will become the new behavior, people will know to listen to the free new music, because that’s what the act is going to play!

Even the Eagles. How many hits do they have? That’s all people want to hear. But the band finally made a new album, they’d like to stretch out on stage. How do they keep the audience from being disinterested? By making sure each and every customer has the new music in ADVANCE!

Now the Eagles are not a perfect example. They got a huge check from Wal-Mart. But that paradigm is going to dry up, not quite as quickly as Radiohead’s name your own price scheme, but quickly. Because physical formats are on their way out. It would be like Wal-Mart selling Smith-Corona typewriters cheaply in order to get you in the store. Huh?

If you’re a touring act, you’ve got to stop thinking of your new music as a revenue source. Rather, it’s an investment in your career, its vitality, its longevity. The key is to get it in as many hands as possible so your sphere of influence, your customer base, doesn’t shrink, but GROWS!

It’s not like a classic act can get any significant radio airplay. As for appearing on "Today", "Ellen" and "Leno"…a great percentage of the target audience doesn’t watch those shows. And, those that do, housewives in the case of the morning and afternoon shows, are they really going to get a babysitter and invest hundreds of dollars to come see you? No, chances are your audience is those not watching the tube, those who leave the house, those with a LIFE! How are you going to reach these people with your new music?

As it is, you’re announcing your tour almost a year before it happens, getting all that revenue up front, before anybody else does… If you give away the music with the ticket, the audience has a long time to become familiar with it! Hell, the dropping of the album and the on sale date happen simultaneously!

I hope this is Live Nation’s plan. They’re not gearing up to be a full service label, are they? Hiring promotion people, et al? Just record these albums and give them away!

Maybe not a complete album. Maybe just the four or five tracks you plan to play in concert.

It’s a new world. It’s time to adapt to it. The goal is to build from the ground up. Do everything you can to get fans exposed to your new material and bond them. Don’t worry so much about the casual buyer. He’s hard to reach, he probably won’t buy a ticket, never mind a t-shirt, you can’t make enough money on him. Milk your core. Via a symbiotic relationship. You don’t get paid for TV. It’s too hard and expensive to get on the radio. Cut out the middle man, go directly to the fan!

If the Internet is so damn fast, why is exploitation so SLOW!

In other words, if the Beatles can release three albums in one year, why does Mariah Carey have to wait three years to release ANOTHER!

One can argue that Mariah’s new record, E=MC2, is already over. As is Madonna’s "Hard Candy". If movies are pulled from theatres in mere weeks, what makes you think the public is not burned out on overhyped music JUST AS FAST!

Sure you want to hear Mariah’s new track. But do you want to hear it SIX MONTHS STRAIGHT? And then be fed ANOTHER cut off the album you purchased eons ago and have already shelved? Who is this rollout for? Certainly not fans, but THE CASUAL BUYER! Yup, we’re gonna keep on beating the same damn drum, hopeful that someone who’s been living under a rock, with no TV, radio or Internet access, will finally enter civilization and say FUCK, there’s a new Mariah Carey album!

By these standards, why don’t we just start working classic rock albums all over again. Singles from "Sgt. Pepper"! There were none to begin with… We’ll start off with the title track, it’s upbeat, good for the summer… And we’ll ready "She’s Leaving Home" for Christmas. Next spring we’ll go with "Being For The Benefit Of Mr. Kite!" March, spring, get it! It’s windy, the snow has melted, fly a kite! We can tie in with kite manufacturers, get a display in Wal-Mart. And then, at the end of summer, we’ll go with "Lovely Rita". And "Good Morning Good Morning" after that. Yup, that’s what every dickhead promoting an album today says…IT’S GOT FIVE SINGLES! So why don’t we go back to the legendary discs, that truly have five singles! But we don’t, because everybody’s heard them, everybody’s burned out on them, they want something NEW! Don’t you think RADIO LISTENERS want something new? And fans?

No, on YouTube, you can only watch/listen to the authorized single. If someone puts up another cut from the record on the video service, which they do all the time, because it’s NATURAL to want to hear everything by an act you’re a fan of, YOU MUST NOT LISTEN! You must adhere to the industry’s rules! Radio must only play the track the label has selected for promotion. Who came up with this fakokta system?

Record companies, looking to maximize profits. Turning music into a commodity rather than a passion. How many times have you winced when a deejay has introduced NEW MUSIC FROM YOUR FAVORITE ACT and it turns out to be something from the album you bought last year? They think we don’t notice, that we don’t feel duped, that we don’t believe the deejay is phony, owned by a corrupt system. You wonder why people have embraced the Net/iPod? BECAUSE IT’S THEIR CHOICE!

I don’t sit here and say… I must wait for new material by my favorite artist until the corporation has maximized revenues… I just want more NOW! And if those under rocks finally come to the city, they can enjoy ALBUMS AND ALBUMS of material! And I can say that I was there first, I saw them live, I know every record.

But NO! We all must be hooked on the very first album. Record company economics demand it! If success is not achieved, there’s not even going to BE a second record. And the labels are crying in their beer that customers have disintermediated their product…bands are saying they only want fans to hear the music the way they want to present it.

The system is COMPLETELY UPSIDE DOWN! Start with the fan. Continue to satiate him. Give him more, CONSTANTLY! Let the buzz spread the word on your act. If almost everybody in America got the word "Speed Racer" SUCKED, do you really think no one’s going to find out if you release something GOOD?

Those at the top of the food chain keeps saying it’s about the music. It ain’t about the music, it’s about COMMERCE! If you’re a musician, go make more music. Don’t go traipsing around on promo tours to bought and sold radio stations, don’t sit for inane interviews with the press. Rather stay at home and keep woodshedding, allowing fans in. Everybody wants access. Why are you keeping people at arm’s length?

If Freddie Mercury could sing "I want it all, I want it all, I want it all and I want it NOW!", what makes the execs and artists who are fans of Queen believe that fans want less, on an ever slower basis?

One of the reasons Clive Calder was so damn successful is he realized boy band fans wanted MORE PRODUCT! His charges put out a record every year. They fed the machine. Everybody burns out, or at least declines in popularity, eventually. Strike when the iron is hot! Don’t wait three to five years for your next album. Don’t play on antiquated media time… Play on new media time. The day your album is released, if not sooner, all your fans can own it. They’ll devour it in about a week. Right thereafter, the countdown begins for something new. Your fans will talk about you, their favorite act, for maybe six months, at most. Then they’re going to start talking about someone else, they’re going to move on! Don’t let them move on, keep them hooked. By giving them MORE! They’re the key to your success. Not Leno, Letterman, "The Today Show", "USA Today", "Rolling Stone"…

Fuck the gatekeepers. Their power disappeared with physical media. They died with the Web. Don’t put on the brakes, MASH THE ACCELERATOR!

What if you released your album and no one cared. Worse, imagine that no one even knew it was out.

With the plethora of information floating in bits and bytes and dead trees throughout the universe, the odds of your release making an impact on the target audience are close to nil. If you’re lucky, someone will read a review somewhere and be aware your record came out. Chances are, they won’t even know it came out.

Then there’s the "superstars". Alicia Keys, Mariah Carey, Madonna… To speak in advertising language, their marketing plans are incredibly inefficient. A lot of time, ink and dollars are spent trying to reach their fans, but most of it is wasted. Most people don’t care, and those who do are bombarded with the same message again and again. Ultimately turned off.

What’s an act to do?

To realize the focus should not be on the media, but the fan. Just like the Internet rid the music business of the need to manufacture and ship, this same Net allows an act to forgo interacting with the media, to go straight to the fan. You must go straight to the fan.

We’re speaking of the aforementioned e-mail list here. Yes, you’ve got to collect names. But how?

By making it a better offer, a better business proposition.

A Website is no longer just a repository of information, it’s the front door to your fan club. You may be a musician, but second to that, you’re running a club. You have to spread the word on your music, you have to create demand for your tour. This is especially true for so called "heritage" artists.

Elton John laments that he can’t sell a record, that no one’s interested in his new music. That’s not true. He’s just going about marketing his music in the old way.

Elton needs to find a track, and give it away for free on his site, for an e-mail address. Sure, said track can ultimately be acquired for free via P2P, but the track isn’t the only thing the fan gets… He gets $5 off a concert ticket. Discount merchandise. Hell, you’re selling direct, the profit margin is huge already! You’ve got your own store, developing your own fan base.

The problem is the old acts believe they’re too big for this. They just want someone to write a check. And now that record companies are not interested, they want it to be Live Nation or another promoter. These complaining acts are not investing in their careers. They want someone else to do all the work. You wonder why no one’s interested in their new music?

New, developing acts, that are not "radio-friendly"… And almost no act deserving of a career is radio-friendly today, listen to Top Forty radio, the only format that really sells tonnage, for edification. Do not look to record companies to do the work. There’s no one there to do the work. Sony gutted its Net division. You’ve got to do the work. There is no man behind the curtain.

I’m not saying you have to give up the old ways completely. There’s nothing wrong with radio play or record reviews…they just have less impact than ever before. Shit, people don’t even write songs about the radio anymore.

How can you get your fans to feel a connection with you? How can you create a bond? How can you create a base that will always deliver? This is the Marillion model. Getting the fans to pay for the record. Other acts, squeezed out of the system, are attempting the same thing. But, the next wave will be giant artists. The ones who fill arenas and sheds playing their old hits. These acts have to hunker down. They may still think they’re stars, but really, stars today are Heidi and Spencer, and they’re working it!

Maybe the musician can’t do it himself. Maybe he needs a team. But do not focus on radio and print to help you along. The public, your fans, don’t have time to wade through the clutter. They’ve got to hear from you directly. They’ve got to have a direct investment in your future. They’ve got to feel like they’re INVOLVED!

I need you to watch Malcolm Gladwell’s TED talk "What We Can Learn From Spaghetti Sauce". I’ll post the link at the bottom. It’s an almost eighteen minute video. You won’t understand where he’s going until at least half way through. But, as he reaches his climax, you’ll identify with the ultimate concept, that success comes not from trying to deliver one product to satisfy all people, but delivering a skein of products, that satisfy a great swath of the public.

If major labels had their druthers, they’d release only one album a year. Which they’d labor over incessantly, and then market in every available medium, beating you over the head until you purchased it. As it is, their paradigm is not much different.

It started in the eighties, when MTV drew a line between winners and losers. If you were on MTV, you sold a ton of product. If you were not on MTV…major labels no longer had an interest in signing you, they weren’t satisfied with the low return.

It got worse in the nineties, with MTV airing even less music and radio getting ever tighter. There were winners and losers. The middle ground almost ceased to exist. Either you were pretty, singing songs written by committee, polished into a product, or the major label couldn’t sell you at all.

Then came 2000 and the Napster era.

The major labels have stated that their decimation has come from theft. That if only people paid for the music they acquired, their business model would be hunky-dory. This is patently untrue. Suddenly, with digital files, people could acquire a wide swath of material, essentially for nothing. And it turned out that although there was a demand for major label product, everything from Mariah Carey to Justin Timberlake to Madonna, that demand was far from the entire spectrum of consumer interest. It was just a slice. People wanted more.

Used to be you couldn’t buy more. First and foremost, you didn’t hear it. Radio didn’t play it. And you literally couldn’t buy it, the big box didn’t stock it. The old model was based on scarcity. You buy what we anoint in retail shops we authorize at a price we determine.

But it turns out many people don’t like Mariah Carey. Some like banjo music. Some like emo. There’s an infinite variety of musical styles, and an audience for each. Maybe the audience isn’t large, but it exists.

How did the major labels deal with all this?

By cutting rosters and employees. Faced with a financial crisis, they pulled back, when they should have been expanding!

The major label, to be a dominant force in the future, has to be all things to all people. It has to release more product… Each album will sell less, but you’ve got to fill the demands of everybody. Instead, they’re focusing on fewer acts, marketed by fewer workers. And those making music outside this purview…want to stay outside!

Why sign with the major label? They’re going to tell you what to record, guide your career, and if you’re not an instant success, you’re going to end up in limbo, your career is going to expire.

So now, all those acts that don’t fit the major label paradigm…they’re going it alone, and they’re happy about it!

They can establish their own Websites. They can get their product in the iTunes Store. They can be in the retail landscape and be beholden to no one. They can reach their audience and make money!

When you watch this Malcolm Gladwell speech, you’ll find out that Prego overtook Ragu by offering a multiple of options. Turns out the public didn’t want just a runny spaghetti sauce, but a spicy one, and most especially, a chunky one. Didn’t matter that the runny was the authentic Italian version. That’s about dictation from above. Like in the music business. Major labels have priorities. But maybe, if the public was exposed to something different, they’d like it! In enough quantity to make money! For everybody who likes Mariah Carey, there are tons who are turned off and hate her. This is the lesson of the twenty first century. Not that if everybody paid for music Mariah would sell more, but that many people don’t want her music at any price, they want something different! He who will rule in the future is he who services all these niches, who gives people something different.

To amass enough power to dominate the market, you must purvey a plethora of acts, you must cover all desires. It’s not about finding the one big hit, but a bunch of singles and bunts. It’s not about giving one person $500,000 to make a record, but enabling people to get their product into the marketplace for almost nothing. Right now, these people are doing it by themselves. These people are not wanted by the major labels. The majors’ "indie" operations are all about physical retail and flying up to the major. Physical retail is dying and the downsides of being on the major are…major. Artists want to be in business with people who are more hands-off than hands-on. The exact opposite of today’s paradigm, with Clive and Jimmy making stars.

As Gladwell says, the search for universals is futile. Because they don’t exist. Turns out the public is segmented, horizontally, they want a lot of different things. It’s not about the lowest common denominator, but servicing each and every one of these niches.

It’s interesting to watch the major label movie, but the enterprises have been so mismanaged as to be marginalized. If they’re lucky, major labels can be the equivalent of BMW in the future. Making highly polished, exquisite merchandise for a limited market willing to pay a high price for it. Whereas the true money is in being Toyota. Purveying everything from the tiny Yaris to the Lexus LS600h. Hitting price points from $10,000 to $100,000. Sure, the Camry is the best selling car in America, but if that was all Toyota sold, the company would not be in good shape. Unless maybe, it focused solely on this product and cut costs and determined to be nothing more. Then there’s GM… Paying lip service to small cars but focusing on big trucks, because that’s where the money was. But then oil prices spiked and no one wanted the small GM cars, because GM had not focused on them and made them great, Toyota made better tiny cars.

We’re presently in a period of chaos. I believe an aggregator will appear in the future, someone servicing artists at a low price to the creator, both artistically and financially. Historically this has not been the major label and no major label is trying to change this paradigm. No major is giving more to the artist, the major wants to give less and take more, like merch and touring revenue. The majors are heading towards marginalization, they’re an ever-decreasing sideshow, to focus on them was to watch IBM to see where the personal computer revolution was headed, as opposed to Microsoft and eventually Netscape and Google.

This is important.

And Gladwell’s speech has implications for radio too. People don’t always know what they want, and they can’t explain what they want, so your call-out research is actually winnowing out listeners, those interested in a broader spectrum of music.

But pay attention to the application to major labels. The majors get way too much press. They are not the future, they are the past.

Malcolm Gladwell: What we can learn from spaghetti sauce